Waterfront Bar turning into high end restaurant
ONE of Rosses Point’s former eateries is getting a complete make- over as a new top end restaurant and boutique B& B.
Restaurateurs Ashleigh and Padraig O’Brien recently bought the Waterfront Bar and adjoining house/ gallery and are now in the process of doing it up to open in time for this year’s tourist season.
They’re planning to convert the currently vacant gallery to a licensed bar/ restaurant and turn the first floor into a boutique B& B.
Architect Paul Doherty submitted The Waterfront plans to Sligo County Council in May.
He said they are currently carrying out internal refurbishment of the existing property and wish to open the property as a licensed restaurant in time for the summer trade of 2017.
The Waterfront Bar is a long established licensed bar which also previously operated as a well- known restaurant at Rosses Upper.
However the new owners intend to “place more emphasis on the restaurant than on the bar”.
Ashleigh and Padraig are experienced restaurateurs and successfully opened the ‘ Blas’ restaurant in Donegal Town within the past two years based on the same model. It’s now “an established high quality restaurant which is licensed to serve alcohol but does not in fact have a bar,” according to Doherty.
“The client’s aspiration is to invigorate the property and add a quality licensed restaurant which will be open on an all year round basis to enhance the existing food offering available in Rosses Point,” he wrote.
It will have seating for 88 diners and bar seating for at least ten customers.
They hope to build a new stairwell from ground to first floor and the rear of the existing gallery/ house.
Upstairs, there were nine small bedrooms, several with no bathroom.
The O’Briens now plan to refurbish them and convert them into seven larger en suite guest bedrooms.
There are further proposals for a new shopfront and porch in relation to the building which form part of a second planning application.
The new timber painted and plaster shopfront will run the length of the entire property and will replace the dated 1980’ s existing shopfronts. .
An existing glass porch will be demolished and a new flat roof glass porch and entrance door built in its place. New larger ground floor windows will be installed along the front of The Waterfront also. Sligo County Council planners are expected to make a decision on both applications by mid July.
They’re the latest young couple to decide to move to Sligo and carve out a future in the tourism industry here. Newly- weds Karen and Tomás Kelly also moved back here and re- furbished and re- opened the Red Cottage B& B on the Bundoran Road earlier this year.